Anyone who's been sewing for a little while (or a long while) will undoubtably have a bag of scraps lying around. I've had dozens of bags, boxes and bins full of scraps over the years. They are frustratingly challenging to use and difficult to part with. They are useful but for what purpose often remains a mystery. Turning scraps into an improvisational quilt has become one of the most emotionally satisfying ways that I have found to use those pesky scraps. My process for assembling the quilt top is really fun and freeing in a way that using a pattern is not. And when it's all done, I have used up some fabric that otherwise would have been in the bin and have a really cool quilt that I can actually use.

Just a quick little post today to share a quilt I finished a few months ago. I started this quilt more than ten years ago before I moved California. Talk about a UFO! Around the time I started this quilt, I took a beginner quilting class at a local quilt store. It was really helpful for learning the basics of cutting and piecing and they are skills that I'm able to apply to garment construction as well.

UPDATE 2021: If you’re interested in learning how to make a quilt, my e-course Improvisational Quilting for Garment Sewists is now live and available for purchase in the shop. This is a self paced and comprehensive course that teaches you everything you need to know to learn how to turn your fabric scraps into useful and unique improvisational quilts. You can learn more about it here.

As I recall, my original vision for this quilt involved circular appliques on top of the squares. I considered adding something more like an applique or embroidery. But I opted to just get it done. Over the years, I slowly pieced this thing together and all that was left was to make a backing, quilt it and bind it. No small feat really. I referred to the book Sunday Morning Quilts for advice on quilting and binding which is not hard once you start doing it. I really love the designs in that book and maybe one day I'll get around to making one of them. For now, I'll just pull it off the shelf every once and a while and ogle the pretty photos.

I actually like the back a lot more than I like the front. It's so simple with all that beautiful negative space. Plus you can see the quilting lines really well. I stitched lines on either side of the seam line of each square and then did a few at 45 degree angles. I like that the angled lines are not perfectly symmetrical because it gives a little more interest to an otherwise pretty boring quilt. I have a big bin in the closet full of scraps of fabric ready for other quilt ideas. There are just so many things that I'd like to make and not enough hours in the day. What's your oldest UFO? Have you transitioned from garment sewing to quilting or vice versa?